Mumbai: The BJP and Shinde Sena finally take shape! The expansion of the Eknath Shinde campaign concluded with the addition of total of 18 MLAs — 9 each from the BJP and Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde — swear in as ministers at Raj Bhavan today.
According to sources, Chandrakant Patil and Vijay Kumar Gavit are among the nine BJP leaders who are taking oath being administered by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari.
The expansion comes five weeks after Eknath Shinde took oath as the CM of Maharashtra on June 30th. Chief Minister Shinde met MLAs of his camp ahead of the ceremony this morning. He is backed by 40 of the 55 Sena MLAs.
BJP MLAs set to get cabinet berths include
- Chandrakant Patil
- Sudhir Mungantiwar
- Girish Mahajan,
- Suresh Khade
- Radha krishna Vikhe Patil
- Ravindra Chavhan
- Mangal Prabhat Lodha
- Vijaykumar Gavit
- Atul Save
Those from the Sena camp are
1.Dada Bhuse
2. Sandeepan Bhumre
3. Uday Samant
4. Tanaji Sawant
5. Abdul Sattar
6. Deepak Kesarkar
7. Gulabrao Patil
8. Sanjay Rathod
9. Shambhuraje Desai
A second round of expansion will take place in two-three weeks, a senior leader of the Shinde camp, hinted the media.